DIY: Rosettes

Rosettes are the perfect way to jazz up a plain outfit or to add a little girliness to your boring look! You can put them on jackets, scarves, headbands, shoes, and purses. Just be creative! Making rosettes out of ribbon, or an old strip of fabric, is super easy! There are a lot of styles of rosettes, but I’ll teach you a basic rosette shape that you can easily experiment with to create new looks.

1. Find a good material: Organza, silk, and brocade make very romantic rosettes while cotton or wool make a good, basic rosette. A 2-inch wide ribbon works well, and if you take a scrap of fabric you may want to sew right sides together and turn it inside out (as if you were making straps) to hide the raw edges. Experiment with different lengths for different looks. A good length to start with is 12 inches.

2. Stitch and Gather: Make a basting stitch down one side of the ribbon (or the middle for a different look). Then pull on the thread at one end, so that the ribbon gathers (or scrunches up in lay language).


basting stitch

3. Connect the edges: Stitch a secure knot where the two ends overlap into a circle. (hand sewing is always the easiest). Often times, you only have to sew the corners together on the side with stitches. This step really depends on how you want your rosette to look. Once you gather the ribbon, it will begin to look like a little flower, so you can use your instincts while finishing it up!

4. Add embellishment to finish it up: Sew a little button, bead, etc. to the middle of the rosette to add a little flair, if you want! Not all rosettes need something in the middle but it often improves the look a lot!


Add rosettes to your purse!
styleinspired.net


Louis Vuitton Spring07
style.com


Anna Sui Fall09
style.com


Valentino Spring Couture 08
style.com

by Alexandra Colley

Trend 2010: Nails

In fashion, details are everything. So while it may seem ridiculous that trends even exist for ways to decorate the tough bits of keratin protruding from a persons finger, the truly fashion-conscious will always remember that fashion merely exists in generalities; it thrives in detail.

How to File and Buff Your Nails
Just thought it would be a useful opening.
Make sure you have: nail clippers, an emery board (no metal nail files unless you want to shred your nails to pieces), a nail buffer with at least 3 types of grain, and preferably some kind of hand and nail moisturizer. Cuticle oil is optional, but I highly recommend it.

1) Wash your hands/nails. If you have a nail care kit, this is where you use the brush to get the grime from under your nails.
2) Dry your hands thoroughly: you dont want to buff or file nails after a bath as this will cause the nails to flake
3) Trim your nails with nail clippers, but leave enough nail to file later
4) Sweep the emery board across the top of the nail again and again. If you want a square nail, sweep it straight across the tip of the nail. If you want a curved shape, gently slide the emery board across each corner. The file should only lightly touch the nail. Do not file along the side of your nails, but rather slightly underneath it so you dont get a rough edge.
5) If you're going to polish your nails, you don't need to buff them.
6) The course surface of a buffer is used to remove ridges, the smooth surface gives the nail a shine, and the third is generally a final polish. There are some buffers with 4 sides though, but those will often tell you in what order to use the sides.
7) Move the course surface across the nail horizontally. Stop when the ridges are smooth. Don't buff ridges more than once per month or you will end up with excessively thin nails.
8) Buff them to shine
9) Use the final side of the buffer to complete. You can do this every week to keep them shining.
10) Use moisturizer

Note: Do NOT cut cuticle. Some people say trimming them is okay, but I say best avoid it as this can cause them to overgrow. Instead invest in cuticle oil (it's usually not very expensive) and use tools to push them back. You should do this before you buff your nails.

Furthermore, clarifying a popular myth: While keeping your nail polish in your refridgerator will prevent decoloration due to reduced solvent evaporation, putting a highly flammable fixture in a sealed box with a motor is never a good idea, so just be safe and put your nail polish in a dark, cool spot.

Winter 2010 Trends
Nail colors this winter are very dark, from the classic black to darker hues of red, blue, and purple. Metallic finishes or anything with a slight shimmer are preferable, however, just like everything else, you should consider what color works for you best. If you have darker skin tones a strong black nail polish or an aubergine with a slight shimmer will work well. If you have a tan complexion, a deep purple or red with a metallic shimmer will flatter your olive complexion. Finally, if you have fair skin, shades of blue or red's with a brownish tint will allow you to exercise these trends without seeming gothic.

If you're a little more conservative and black is too strong for you, nudes in opaque are bold but still natural.

The nail shape for 2009-2010 seems to have shifted from the square shape to more of a squoval (I know, cool word), 'natural' shape. Keep them short-medium: you don't often have easy-to-maintain fashion trends, so take advantage of it!

Designs
Half-moon manicure, or “reverse French mani”, hit the runways for Fall 2009 (e.g. Christian Dior) and seems to still be lingering around for Winter 2010. Designs for winter tend to be bold and simple, so half-moon manicures are probably the most elaborate nail design you'll be seeing this winter.

Nevertheless, I have my own creative explorations.

Please excuse my blurry photos :/

Piet Mondrian


This is my staple nail design. I discovered my love for Piet Mondrian some years ago and thus as a means of minor procrastination decided to use his designs for my nails. I consider this fashion move to be a sign of genius in me and thus you'll find it difficult to effectively insult me when I have bothered to do this nail design.

Here I try to attempt a Jackson Pollack-esque nail design, which I snagged from Seventeen magazine a couple years back, but of course they did it better.


Brands
Regardless of the brand, you should have at least a transparent top coat to avoid chipping. However, if you really want a good nail polish, Revlon and Lakme seem to be the top brands in nail polish. But really, anything as long as it isnt dirty-cheap will be fine.

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Sources: Videojug
www.Rechargespa.com
http://beautify-flr.blogspot.com/2009/10/nail-trend-fall-and-winter-20092010.html
http://www.oprah.com/article/omagazine/val_omag_200711_polish

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ERIKA

Fashion Inspiration: "500 Days of Summer"

Do you feel that your style has become limited or are you bored with your clothes? Do you want to try something new with your personal style but don’t know how? Or do you simply want to have a greater variety of fashion inspiration?

In fashion, inspiration is endless. We don’t only get inspiration from runway shows or street looks, but also from movies, paintings, history, and even furniture or buildings. Basically everything in our daily life can inspire our style. So in this section, we will include a variety of fashion inspiration, and hope you can get some new and fresh ideas into your closet!

I decided to do my first “Fashion Inspiration” article on the award-nominated movie, “500 Days of Summer”. Honestly speaking, it is not my type of movie, as I tend to prefer the unrealistic and romantic love that lasts forever. However, I found myself completely attracted to Summer Finn's (played by Zooey Deschanel) clothes. Her style is simple with a retro feel, which, with a few alterations, can be pulled-off easily in our everyday life.


General Style
I will start with the elements for the general style: dress shirts, preppy style elements and high-waist bottoms.

Dress shirt
Summer often wears dress shirts, both to work and to a date. It makes her look smart but fun at the same time! There are many types of dress shirts, but to have Summer’s cute and feminine look, I suggest shirts with lace-collars, butterfly sleeves, or a long dress shirt that can be worn as a dress. This way, you won’t look overdressed.








Preppy Style
This is one of my favorite styles of all time! Summer pulls it off really well by simply wearing a shirt under a plaid cardigan and a pleated skirt. If you don’t want to look like you are wearing a school uniform, you can choose only one or a few of the elements and shorten the skirt to look sexier. Wearing a tie can also be really cute!





High-waist
One of the easiest ways to have a retro style is to wear high-waist skirt or shorts. This not only adds more variety to your look, but it also makes your legs look longer. Summer often pairs her high-waist bottoms with a dress shirt. Another simple way to do this is to wear a high-waist dress, or use a belt above the waist to have a more defined hour-glass shape.
p.s. Please scroll up to “Dress Shirt” section for picture reference from the movie.

Special Elements
If you don’t particularly want to look like Summer, but want to use some of the elements in her style to spice up your own, here are some cute ideas that I like about her style.

Blue
This is just a color that I repetitively see in her clothes. I personally have lots of blue clothes for some reason, but if you don’t, I think blue creates a comfortable and soft look, and it’d be a more lively basic color compared to black or grey.



Bows
I have realized that Summer often puts bow in her hair. It is definitely cute, and you can wear it as a headband like Blair Waldorf of "Gossip Girl", or as a hair tie, which adds a liveliness to the look. This is also a great element for a school-girl look.



Brooches
Brooches can add color to a plain shirt, and you can easily create a vintage look by coordinating brooches with your outfit. You can put one on the collar of a shirt like Summer does, pin it on your pearl necklace, or pin it on your scarf, which is both unique and useful to keep the scarf in place!




Here are some outfits I put together on Polyvore. I hope it can give you some inspiration!
(Please excuse my beginner-level of putting these together…it’s my first time using polyvore :P any comment/suggestion is appreciated!)




Now, are you ready to create your own Summer-inspired look?

Sources:

1. allmoviephoto.com
2. www.esquire.com
3. gradwolf.files.wordpress.com
4. www.moviewallpaper.net
5. illestaritions.files.wordpress.com
6. tw.movie.yahoo.com

stay fashionable,
sharon lin xx

Welcome!

Hello and welcome to all you beautiful people,

This is La Mode's new blog, where we will be posting plenty of fashion-conscious content for your eager eyes and minds. Keep in mind this is a work in progress, so not everything will move quickly to begin with. We have a lot of work ahead of us if we want to get the ball rolling. Even so, I am excited for what's to come.

Steven